Zoom Zoom

Tamiya is telling distributors to expect the revised primers and thinners etc. to start hitting later this month, and some will be in May. Just be patient, it will be back. Floquil makes some nice figure primers, you can use those. Gunze/Mr. Hobby makes great hobby primers Mr. Surfacer 500, 1000, 1200, some in bottles, some in spray cans. I have been using a jar of Mr. Surfacer 1000 and love it. Thinned w/Mr. Color Thinner (same basic stuff as Tamiya lacquer thinner), it goes on smoother than Tamiya primer from a spray can....so even though I'll be able to soon restock on the Tamiya spray bombs, I will be using them less now that I'm so happy w/the Mr. Hobby alternatives. Haven't seen Plastikote primer in ages. Don't really miss it.

No kits whatsoever. However if you search around, you'll find many 1/24 diecast models of modern BMW's. The ones by Welly are the best, and consider any diecast a "blank canvas" to work with.

A website in the UK lets you make your own here

Oh, okay, it hasn't had anything posted since 1PM and seems down again. I still get the "new posts" page but can't open anything.

The SA site is working fine for me. It was down last night or earlier today. In the meantime:

I got my "newest" and improved sheet in March of 2010 and the vendor told me at the same show this year that even ordering straight from BMF that it seemed that they weren't always consistent. I've used not quite half of that new sheet and in the meantime it has begun to wrinkle on the backing sheet, but it still works well and has not exhibited any signs of cracking. The previous sheet of "batch 1 new and improved" that I had was worthless. BMF should have changed something about the packaging to know what production batch it is...or they've had more issues in subsequent production runs. My only suggestion would be to complain, get fresh product, and learn how to make your own from thin/generic kitchen foil and Microscale foil adhesive.

My Falcon arrived today. Compared it to my original (built nicely by somebody) '65. The model is a headscratcher, for sure. So much promise...so many oddities. It is what it is. I'm reading up on the Japanese website (thanks to Google Translate) where the black one was built, looking at photos of real Falcons. No doubt that it will look decent and should be a fun build...but I'm not under any delusions, I really wish they'd have sweat the details more. Photos on the Japanse website of the convertible shows the "Falcon" lettering on the decklid that is missing on the HT. The CV has a more basic steering wheel, more basic air cleaner, a bench seat, and some bigger tires for the optional 5 spoke wheels. For those complaining about the stock exhaust...just use the custom dual exhaust. It looks much better and much more believable as an exhaust system. It's no more "wrong" than the stock setup.

No, they didn't miss them, they're just "scaled more appropriately". Not sure if there are any missing between the trunk lid and roof...

Now that got my attention! More...more!

I just happened upon the convertible kit and instructions (the HT is there as well) at a well-known Japanese online hobby shop; nice that the CV and HT have their own side panels, nice to see an uptop in the CV too. Looks like whitewalls are up to the builder...no inserts, no decals.

Thanks! Actually my wheels are a mad-scientist concoction of Alclad colors mixed/matched, recoated, revised, and coated w/Tamiya smoke; and as you know I'm still second-guessing the look. They do look great, but on my pearl white car I think I could have done better with either straight gloss black, or straight Alclad stainless steel on the wheels. For Lownslow's model, I think straight gloss black would be perfect. My "I have no idea how I'd match them again" colored wheels would look better on his car than on my white car It is nice to know Tamiya did not simplify the drivetrain on this one, it is fully detailed to the level that a lot of people would have wanted the Aston Martin to be done. And yet so much of this awesome mechanical stuff is fairly well buried from view once it is all put together. You can put the engine/drivetrain/suspension together with the wheels and put that assembly under anything. Only the pricetag of doing such would be the greatest hurdle.

I see everything everyone else sees, maybe more, but how it affects me is a personal thing, as it is for everyone else. So much negative energy swirling about, I like to keep it positive like your idea of steering towards how to improve what you have. I see a pretty neat Falcon with potential, others seem to focus on details that drive them nuts so they have a hard time seeing what others see as good. I see a model that looks a whole lot better to my eyes than their Bonneville HT or Nova CV, that's for sure. Maybe I'd be less objective if Trumpeter had done something more (personally) grail-worthy. I went from a somewhat bored observer to accepting a review sample to build because of all this controversy I've railed enough on Trumpeter's previous models, still haven't built one

I don't think the issue here is what people have found wrong, as much as how many times and how many places they've gone over and over and over and over it to death, the horse isn't beaten it's now a soup-like puree. I don't get why so much energy is being spent on this. It is what it is. Buy it if you want, don't buy it if you don't. Gregg's "thanks" comment is being completely ignored by the horse-puree folks. There are no gold stars for anyone's forehead over what else you can find "wrong" with the model. When I saw the beautiful black model, I saw a lot more "right" in it than some will ever give it credit. The amount of obsession over this kit is...

No, but I drove through there Saturday and yesterday as I was in Brookville visiting relatives this weekend There's an empty hobby shop on Main Street in Brookville just dying for someone to resurrect.

At what point does a discussion/critique go from just that, to a case study in OC(D) behavior? At what point does making observations over and over and over again become the entertainment value of modeling, vs. actually building and enjoying the hobby from that perspective? It is one thing to have a good discussion, but how much leftover horse puree can people handle? The new kit looks like fun. Compared the photos to a nicely built 65 in my collection, I just don't see why so much fuss and drama about the new kit. Yeah, a few gaffes. Nothing terrible. It's Trumpeter, it is what it is, they are what they are, life goes on. The original kit looks nice, but itself is very crude and inaccurate in many ways. Someone built the one I have very nicely and had fun with it. Others will do the same w/the new kit. It's only a Falcon.

I know exactly how you must feel. Looks like fun.

Well, if it helps any...Tamiya's DBS tires are too large to begin with. They should be much lower profile. If you can snag some Pegasus Michelin Pilots, the tires used in Tamiya 350Z kits, they will stretch nicely over many different 19" and 20" wheels. I know Scale Dreams carries them, they come in two different sizes and one package has both sizes. Also the HD DBS wheels I have are the "female" configuration while Tamiya uses "male" wheels w/a pin. What in the world would make Hobby Design do this is beyond me

Twenty pages of outrage yet? Building is more fun than griping Oh, and Stevens has begun shipping the kits, so some may see them as early as this weekend.

MSRP on the Trumpeter kits is $50 vs. $30 for Moebius kits, both before any discounts. Let's just say Moebius is setting themselves up for accolades/attention/happy buyers in a way that Trumpeter doesn't seem to understand when it comes to car kits. If Revell had done the Falcon people would be complaining about it, even for half the price charged by Trumpeter. I fully understand why people are turned off by the Falcon; there just is no justification for a model with so many "excuses" and carrying a 100% premium over kits made by a company that does it better. By comparison, Moebius seems fully capable of making the decisions necessary to improve the product greatly between test shot and store shelf, based on honest human input, not just a beancounter mentality. As said before, the Falcon finished does look relatively attractive to my eyes, even less-than-perfect. It's not a grail, I just want one for some non-OOB fun. Overall I see it as a good improvement over an original...overall. The fact that it's so imperfect in many areas and sold as a premium item for a premium price, well...caveat emptor.

I'm good for one of them at least; the built model, warts and all, is pretty attractive as anyone can see from his incredibly sanitary build. It looks like there's no good reason in the world why it should cost a nickel more than a Revell kit, and as usual they don't seem to sweat the details much past the initial drawings. That's where the corner-cutting begins Now for all you guys savaging this kit like they made it look like a Rambler Lada , I've been comparing this to an original built '65 Falcon and if you guys think the chassis is whacked on the new kit, the vintage kit is really whacked. Wire axles, screws, nothing close to prototypical underhood detail...yes, the Trumpeter kit does look like it needs to be sealed up and injected with about 10 psi of air to get the body shape just right...I still think it will be a fun build. I have no idea in the world why they whiff on things like the exhaust and transmission...it's not like Trumpeter has ever gotten that stuff right, ever, have they? I'm kind of amazed these actually got to market. I'm interested in seeing the custom parts that come w/the convertible. It will be an interesting summer w/these new Falcons, Moebius Lonestars, Hudson Hornets and Chrysler 300's, Mustang GT's, and Fujimi doing a curbside AMG Mercedes SLS. Could be a fun little quasi-Trans Am vintage racer in this thing...

Wagons are C L

The yellow car is the one that used to be located near me and was owned by George Doughty and Knox Kershaw. I really wish I'd taken Mr. Kershaw up on his offer when I could

AFAIK, nothing was ever done as the car was much later than 1966. I'm kicking myself as there was a yellow one locally for years owned by an AMC collector, and he sold it to collector Knox Kershaw of Alabama; when he showed the car at the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance, I struck up a conversation w/him and he invited me to his collection to photo/measure the car as I wanted to make a master. Well...I never had the chance to go there and he subsequently sold the car. I doubt Scale Kraft was doing the model...I would have known about it. He was working on a Mangusta which looked good but never got past the master stage. Nothing came of his masters/molds since he retired.

Since nobody has really answered your question... Yes, you need to clearcoat the paint. The Testors lacquers are designed to be a 2 stage base/clear system. The base coats are not very glossy and will not polish up to a gloss anything like, say, Tamiya spray pure white. The Testors paint doesn't have the clear carrier in the base coat. So yes...clearcoat it. Here's where it gets tricky; Testors clearcoat dries quickly and glossy, but many people report that you cannot wrap the car, even after it has cured for months, with anything, or you will damage the clearcoat. You can use Tamiya TS13 clear instead and that paint doesn't have the same issues w/wrapping. I recently painted a model w/Testors Honduras Maroon overcoated w/Tamiya clear red and then clear. It came out gorgeous; zero problems w/compatibility. I tested some of the Testors lacquer solid colors myself, to see if they could be buffed out w/o clear...they didn't buff out to an acceptable gloss (to me). Many others are satisfied with it. I'm not. Maybe for replicating a model of a car with aged paint... Your paint likely wasn't cured enough before you did the foiling. I use a dehydrator, I don't have paint cure problems...after overnight in the dehydrator, anything I've sprayed is ready for sanding, buffing, whatever.